A roof's job ends at the edge. Everything after that is the gutters' problem, and it is a bigger problem than most people assume: a moderate storm on an average roof moves a genuinely surprising volume of water to the eave in a short time, and all of it has to be caught, carried sideways and dropped somewhere useful.
When gutters cannot keep up, the water goes over the front edge or backs up behind them. Over the front is the visible failure and the less damaging one. Backing up behind the gutter is the expensive one: water gets in behind the fascia, soaks the gutter board and the ends of the rafter tails, and rots structural timber that is genuinely awkward to replace. By the time anyone notices, the repair is carpentry, not gutter work.
Three things decide whether that happens. Size — a gutter has to be sized for the roof area actually draining into it, and a long run collecting from a large steep plane needs more capacity than the standard the builder defaulted to. Pitch — a gutter that is level or backfalls holds water and silt, which grows into a blockage and adds weight until the hangers pull. And downspouts — too few of them turns an adequately sized gutter into a bathtub, because capacity at the outlet is what governs.
The last piece is where the water lands. A downspout that discharges straight onto the ground next to the wall has moved the problem from the roof to the foundation, which is not an improvement. Extensions or a proper drainage run that carries it clear of the building is the cheapest structural insurance available on a house.
We install and replace gutters and downspouts alongside the roofing work, sized and pitched for the roof they are actually draining. Call New Generations Services at (240) 375-4853.